Long Term Care Insurance

The Pennsylvania Long Term Care Alliance

July 2007, Governor Ed Rendell signed into law Act 40 which established the Pennsylvania Long Term Care Partnership Program. The Partnership is a joint effort by State Government and Private Industry to create a program that enables Pennsylvanians to meet their future long term care needs without impoverishing themselves to pay for care. More than 200,000 senior Pennsylvanians are enrolled in the State’s medical assistance program known as Medicaid. However, Medicaid will pay for your Long Term Care needs only when your assets and resources (excluding your home and car) are less than $2,400. If you do not have private insurance, you will then have to pay for your expenses out-of-pocket and spend-down to Medicaid’s asset limit in order to qualify.

Policies that meet the requirements of the Partnership program are called Partnership policies and provide a unique feature called dollar-for-dollar asset protection. This provides the policyholder an asset protection equal to the insurance benefits paid by the policy. Therefore, if the policyholder received $200,000 of insurance benefits and still need long term care, he is entitled to keep $200,000 in assets beyond the limit of Medicaid. This means that residents of Pennsylvania may continue to receive care through the Medicaid program without being required to spend down their assets, after depleting the benefits of qualified private insurance policies.